It’s that time of year…the time to look ahead, consider the possibilities a new year brings, and decide what will make a big difference to your business and your practice. It’s easy, of course, to make resolutions—it’s keeping them that can be the hard part!

One resolution you can both make and keep is to learn more about the power of the blog. One of the most powerful online tools, blogs can help you promote your business, build your network and boost your web presence. Best of all, they do so at little or even no cost and require no special technical skill or knowledge.

As more and more ADR professionals are discovering, blogs are an ideal online tool for both business marketing and for social interaction, producing conversation, community, and contact with prospective clients and referral sources.

My good friend Tammy Lenski, one of the blogosphere’s most respected ADR bloggers, and I are collaborating on a new program to benefit you, our dispute resolution colleagues. Launching in January 2006, this professional teleseminar program will give blogging newcomers a primer in blogging basics and prepare you to leverage blogging strategies to build your business. Based on what Tammy and I have learned in mentoring numerous other bloggers, we have designed a program with your needs in mind.

“Building Buzz with Blogs: Internet Marketing for Dispute Resolution Professionals (Even If You’re Not a Geek!)” will be held on four consecutive Mondays in January 2007, from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET. Click here to register.

Each session focuses on a key topic to prepare you for blogging success. You’ll have a chance to learn all about:

• Session 1: Build Your Brand with an ADR Blog, January 8
• Session 2: Choose Your ADR Blogging Platform, January 15
• Session 3: Jumpstart Your ADR Blog, January 22
• Session 4: Write a Topnotch ADR Blog, January 29

To participate, all you need is a telephone. With registration, you’ll receive the dial-in information for the call(s), an audio recording of the teleseminar for your future reference, and supporting handouts with resources we recommend to make your blogging experience effective and successful. You may register for the 4-session series (your most cost effective option) or choose from among the teleseminars.

Tammy publishes the critically acclaimed blog, “Mediator Tech“, and is the founder and editor of a new collaborative blogging project, “Mastering Mediation.” I publish this blog, “Online Guide to Mediation” and am the founder and webmaster of the world’s first Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs, which tracks and catalogues over 90 blogs from 15 countries.

Click here to register.

The World Directory of ADR Blogs has added four German language blogs to its catalogue. They are:

ADR-Blog. Published by mediator and attorney Marcus Brinkmann, ADR-Blog explores the themes of mediation, conflict management, and negotiation, providing readers with informative reflections on alternative dispute resolution issues and practice. It also contains a Listing of ADR Blogs created to track and draw attention to the ever-increasing numbers of German language blogs devoted to mediation and ADR.

DiaBlog. The imaginatively titled DiaBlog, published by Dr. Joachim Simen, provides up-to-date information, reflection, and commentary on mediation and dialogue.

Institute Sikor Blog. This blog offers readers information, news, and discussion regarding mediation, collaborative processes, nonviolent communication, and social change. Its guiding principle is straightforward: “Our vision is a world in which the needs of all humans count!” Published by trainers and mediators Marianne and Markus Sikor.

Konfliktblog. Through regularly published articles, it seeks to build understanding of and appreciation for mediation by exploring its chief themes of conflict and its resolution. Written by trainer and mediator Kirstin Nickelsen.

I’d like to acknowledge mediator and attorney Christoph Stroyer, who publishes the German language blog Master of Mediation, who was kind enough to alert me to the existence of DiaBlog, and also Marcus Brinkmann whose link to the Directory of ADR Blogs drew my attention to ADR-Blog, his Listing of ADR Blogs, and thence to the two other German blogs.

My deepest appreciation to these fellow travelers in the ADR blogosphere. Vielen dank!

What we do has impact. Every deed, every word.

In just 90 seconds, the video “Children See, Children Do” shows how powerful that impact can be when it comes to the children whose lives we touch.

This video is part of a public awareness campaign of Child Friendly Australia, an initiative of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN).

If you want to make the world a better place (and who doesn’t), watch this short clip.

(Thanks to the blog Dumb Little Man for the link.)

The “vanishing trial” phenomenon is a crisis in the law, according to a recent article in the Boston Globe. Young trial attorneys aren’t getting the chance to build trial skills since purportedly few cases now go to trial.

Here’s the reason, according to the Globe:

Because of the high cost of going to trial, fear of unpredictable jury verdicts, and other factors, many cases instead are being resolved through settlements, mediation, and arbitration, which litigants often prefer to the emotional ordeal of going to court.

Help me out here. What exactly is the problem?

I took pen (or actually keyboard) in hand to write a letter in response, which the Globe published:

It’s too bad that you framed the phenomenon of the so-called vanishing trial as a problem and not a positive (”Few chances for lawyers to develop trial skills,” Page A1, Nov. 29).

There’s evidence to demonstrate that the decrease in trials is due to better case management practices by the courts, combined with the fact that so many courts now offer an array of dispute resolution mechanisms, such as mediation, which encourage the early and mutually satisfactory settlement of disputes. If fewer cases go to trial for these reasons, then our overburdened courts and litigants all benefit.

The article also unwittingly perpetuates the myth that television delivers to us daily that all attorneys do is litigate. While trial skills continue to be taught in law schools and are part of any attorney’s tool kit, these are not the only skills that our profession calls upon or that attorneys develop or law schools teach. The most important roles attorneys serve are as advisers, negotiators, problem solvers, and even healers of conflict. If fewer cases are going to trial, then it may simply mean that attorneys are doing their job in fulfilling these other roles.

The vanishing trial–a conjuror’s trick or a crisis in the law? What do you think?